Jesus Deals Gently with the Bruised Reed & Smoking Flax

“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Isaiah 42:3
The thoughts most prominently brought before us in these two passages from the Evangelical Prophet, are, the vastness of the Divine condescension and the gentleness of the Divine dealings—the timid, the weak, the bruised, the burdened, the fallen, nestling in peace and safety under the Heavenly Palm-shade!
The great ones of the earth generally associate only with the great. They are like the eagle, which holds little converse with the low, misty valley, when it can get up amid the blue skies and granite peaks. It is the powerful—the rich—the strong—the titled, who are the deified and worshiped. The weak, and poor, and powerless get but a small fraction of regard, and are too often left, unpitied and neglected, to endure the rough struggle of existence as best they may. And the world has accordingly shaped its gods after this its own ideal. We see the embodiment of that ideal chiseled in the old slabs of Assyrian marble, where the winged bull or lion is depicted trampling its enemies in the dust—the strong trampling on the weak. But the early Christians had also their truer and nobler symbol, which they have left in crude designs in the Roman catacombs: it is the embodiment of the first words which head this meditation—the often-recurring representation of a Shepherd—the Great Shepherd of the Sheep—the Mighty God—carrying on His shoulder a feeble lamb.
—John MacDuff